One week, 235 emails and 4.5GBs of photos later, we are back from the incredibly beautiful island of Bali. It has been decided that we shall one day retire there :P:P
We are both fully refreshed and rejuvenated, and very happy to have been so blessed to be able to travel again within the same year despite the fact that we had just splashed out on our wedding in June and that I am still only working freelance.
We were also very blessed as our journey went extremely smoothly despite the fact that the Indonesian government had scheduled the execution period of the Bali bombers to coincide with our trip. Three car-bombs were found in the days leading up to our departure and we were constantly warned, even by locals to stay away from certain specific areas after nightfall.
The said offenders were executed a day after we got home, and parts of Bali plunged into chaos again.
It's a terrible injustice to the peaceful peoples of Bali, to have their beloved island used in a standoff between the terrorists and the Indonesian government. The indigenous Balinese peoples are not even Muslim to begin with, but they pay dearly, as with the rest of Indonesia when their tourist industry is disrupted.
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I believe that my God that restores to us everything that we have lost. "Everything" includes lost time. Lost love. Lost souls. Lost favour. Lost health. No one else can possibly return some of these to us, but He can.
Even if we started out with something or nothing, and even if everyday, we struggle to make do with whatever little or a lot we have, my God will stretch whatever on hand to make everything perfect according to His perfect love for each of us.
Over the years I've observed His amazing love for some of the people around me and how He has touched each one of us uniquely. I used to wonder if He was working His daily miracles into the tapestry of my own life.
It seems like I've only just opened my eyes to what He's done in my life and I realised how much time, energy and money I've wasted on a number of people and how much grief I've caused some others, by not investing enough time or energy. A couple of people surface in my memory very quickly, and I count my hurting them as one of my life's greatest regrets.
Although I know it is not possible for some of these people to forgive me for the things I've said or done in the past, I believe that the score between me and God has been forever settled.
The score between me and these people probably will never be settled, but I suppose I am willing to live with that. I mean, for all the well-meaning in the world, some people just simply refuse to forgive.
The past two years, I've begun to see quite clearly how God's favour supercedes every circumstance and situation. As long as one has His favour, it doesn't matter how hard you try or how hard you don't.
His favour is always more than enough. In summary, something I read whilst on holiday in Bali:
"You'll never realise that all you need is God until God is all you have."
- 10 November 2008 3:27pm -
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